Queens V St Mirren

[Guest Flash]

Yet another defensive shambles. At the first goal, when the ball is played across, we have 6 players back (not including the keeper). You could throw a coat over 5 of them and all 6 are on our right hand side of the pitch. It looks like a primary school game. 

What do they do all week? Practise seeing how ridiculous the next goal they give away can be?

[Homer Thompson]

3 minutes ago, Flash said:

Yet another defensive shambles. At the first goal, when the ball is played across, we have 6 players back (not including the keeper). You could throw a coat over 5 of them and all 6 are on our right hand side of the pitch. It looks like a primary school game. 

What do they do all week? Practise seeing how ridiculous the next goal they give away can be?

Unsurprisingly harsh.

Mercer is trying to challenge Morgan. Dowie goes to the near post to cut out the cross. Marshall tracks his man into the middle and Jacobs picks up the man on the edge of the box. Its really Higgins and Rankin that are the problem. Higgins gets drawn to the near post but ends up in no mans land. That means Rankin gets drawn to the man in the box that Higgins really should be picking up and has no idea Mallen is coming in behind him

[Coventry Saint]

That really was a very soft penalty. Unless there was a tug of the shirt that the cameras didn't pick up, I really can't see what's gone on there.

[Skyline Drifter]

43 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

 

Not allowing him onto the pitch would be my hope and certainly not allowing him in among the home fans.

Shortly after the incident I noticed 2/3 (genuinely can't be precise as I was as far away as could be) stewards standing at the gate between the terrace and new stand. What's going to 'go down' over there?

Given the 'scenes' at the last game against St Mirren and the fact they are fighting for their life and any goal they scored was at a particularly high risk of this kind of thing happening should this not have been foreseen? Running onto the pitch can't always be prevented but for him to be able to run into the home section was pretty poor. I actually felt sorry for the one guy chasing him though.

Short of ringing the pitch with about 200 stewards or sticking 80's style fences up you can't physically stop someone jumping over a 2 foot fence onto the pitch. And equally you can't especially easily stop him jumping back over it in the other direction. There is an inevitable responsibility for fans to self police themselves here. Given he was plainly harmless, if moronic, I think they handled it reasonably well though as I said before, I'd rather they had been quicker to "welcome" him off the pitch than allowing him to dive straight under the stand. He was easily caught and held there though.

[Guest Flash]

28 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Unsurprisingly harsh.

Mercer is trying to challenge Morgan. Dowie goes to the near post to cut out the cross. Marshall tracks his man into the middle and Jacobs picks up the man on the edge of the box. Its really Higgins and Rankin that are the problem. Higgins gets drawn to the near post but ends up in no mans land. That means Rankin gets drawn to the man in the box that Higgins really should be picking up and has no idea Mallen is coming in behind him

Yep, complete and utter shambles. Yet again.

And I was being nice describing it as primary school level. It wasn't even that good.

[Skyline Drifter]

33 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Thats an incredibly soft penalty. Theres a bit of a pull early on but there doesnt look like much contact when Morgan goes down.

I expect @19QOS19 will be along shortly to apologies to Marshall  Absolutely blameless for the first goal. Its hard to pick whos at fault, both central defenders get drawn to the near post without really picking anyone up or being in position to cut out the cross. Rankine, inexplicably, also goes to the near post with no awareness of Mallen coming into the box. Im not convinced Atkinson is blameless either. He closes Mallen down pretty quickly but then dives out of the way of the ball.

 

I think it's a penalty. There's a second little tug with his right hand once Morgan is beyond him. There's not much and Morgan's clearly looking to go down but it's there and Mercer's reaction isn't one of a player who has been hard done to.

The first goal starts with a handball from McGinn who controls it on halfway with his right arm. Looked like it might have been handball at the time, certainly everyone around us shouted for it, and it's pretty clear on the replay. After that we're a wee bit unlucky but nobody picks up the run from Mallan at all and eventually that costs us. Marshall has to go in with Loy so can't be there. Higgins comes out to challenge McGinn in the first place, Mercer has got Morgan. I'm not sure why Dowie feels he has to run beyond the near post towards Mercer. He ends up caught a bit in no man's land. If he'd stayed in the middle perhaps Marshall wouldn't have had to go in with Loy. Once McGinn comes back inside Rankin actually does quite well to make sure he can't get on the end of it because Higgins has lost him by then. I think Rankin's actions probably stop McGinn scoring , far from being inexplicable. Jacobs goes out to the other side after spotting the support run from Magennis. The problem is Mallan comes very late and nobody comes with him, leaving the entire right side of the pitch free for him. You can see at the start of the video the other four players are all well beyond the ball in midfield and realistically only Dobbie or Thomson could even have tried to track Mallan. I doubt either would have got there though. Atkinson does dive the wrong way too and turns away from it a wee bit though he is quick to close it down.

[Homer Thompson]

7 minutes ago, Flash said:

Yep, complete and utter shambles. Yet again.

And I was being nice describing it as primary school level. It wasn't even that good.

Two players not defending properly is hardly an utter shambles.

6 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I think it's a penalty. There's a second little tug with his right hand once Morgan is beyond him. There's not much and Morgan's clearly looking to go down but it's there and Mercer's reaction isn't one of a player who has been hard done to.

The first goal starts with a handball from McGinn who controls it on halfway with his right arm. Looked like it might have been handball at the time, certainly everyone around us shouted for it, and it's pretty clear on the replay. After that we're a wee bit unlucky but nobody picks up the run from Mallan at all and eventually that costs us. Marshall has to go in with Loy so can't be there. Higgins comes out to challenge McGinn in the first place, Mercer has got Morgan. I'm not sure why Dowie feels he has to run beyond the near post towards Mercer. He ends up caught a bit in no man's land. If he'd stayed in the middle perhaps Marshall wouldn't have had to go in with Loy. Once McGinn comes back inside Rankin actually does quite well to make sure he can't get on the end of it because Higgins has lost him by then. I think Rankin's actions probably stop McGinn scoring , far from being inexplicable. Jacobs goes out to the other side after spotting the support run from Magennis. The problem is Mallan comes very late and nobody comes with him, leaving the entire right side of the pitch free for him. You can see at the start of the video the other four players are all well beyond the ball in midfield and realistically only Dobbie or Thomson could even have tried to track Mallan. I doubt either would have got there though. Atkinson does dive the wrong way too and turns away from it a wee bit though he is quick to close it down.

As the right sided centre back, Dowie should be going to the near post, although I would say he's probably a bit too close to Morgan to have any chance of cutting out the cross. Its Higgins who should be staying in the centre and either picking up Loy or McGinn but he gets caught upfield after going for a ball and getting nowhere near it. Maybe I was a bit harsh on Rankin but, as the deepest player, he really should be seeing Mallen coming in and passing McGinn on to Higgins.

[Guest Flash]

Just now, Mr X said:

Two players not defending poorly is hardly an utter shambles.

 

Two players not defending poorly means 8 were defending poorly .

If you can watch that unfold and not think it is shambolic, then you will never see anything shambolic. I have yet to see any team we have played defend like that.

[Coventry Saint]

18 minutes ago, Flash said:

I have yet to see any team we have played defend like that.

Really?! 

[Skyline Drifter]

20 minutes ago, Mr X said:

As the right sided centre back, Dowie should be going to the near post, although I would say he's probably a bit too close to Morgan to have any chance of cutting out the cross. Its Higgins who should be staying in the centre and either picking up Loy or McGinn but he gets caught upfield after going for a ball and getting nowhere near it. Maybe I was a bit harsh on Rankin but, as the deepest player, he really should be seeing Mallen coming in and passing McGinn on to Higgins.

Sorry, I just can't agree on Rankin. Higgins has lost McGinn. If Rankin does anything other than what he does I think McGinn gets a free shot in from a central position 15 yards out. He's a bigger and more immediate threat than Mallan and even if Rankin did see Mallan coming in he still has to go to McGinn. Higgins isn't there to pass him on to.

[Guest Flash]

6 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

Really?! 

I really don't think I have seen any other team have all their defending players in one area with nobody at all on the other side of the pitch. I can understand people saying the other midfielders probably wouldn't have caught Mallan the way it panned out, but even if the cross had been blocked, he would still have been in acres of space because nobody bothered their arse attempting to get back. Is that what players are supposed to do - think to themselves "I won't catch him, so I'll just wait here because it will save me a walk when we kick off after the goal"?

St.Mirren's defending was poor in the first game at Palmerston right enough. I still don't think I've seen anything as bad as that, even from us. And we've been terrible at the back all season. It might just be me, though. Others seem to think it wasn't that bad.

 

[Skyline Drifter]

8 minutes ago, Flash said:

I really don't think I have seen any other team have all their defending players in one area with nobody at all on the other side of the pitch. I can understand people saying the other midfielders probably wouldn't have caught Mallan the way it panned out, but even if the cross had been blocked, he would still have been in acres of space because nobody bothered their arse attempting to get back. Is that what players are supposed to do - think to themselves "I won't catch him, so I'll just wait here because it will save me a walk when we kick off after the goal"?

St.Mirren's defending was poor in the first game at Palmerston right enough. I still don't think I've seen anything as bad as that, even from us. And we've been terrible at the back all season. It might just be me, though. Others seem to think it wasn't that bad.

I didn't say they shouldn't have bothered to chase Mallan, they absolutely should have. Thomson in particular as the box to box workhorse in midfield had a responsibility to try to get there. I just said I don't think there's any chance he would have caught him given he started 10 yards behind him anyway. There are a couple of clear errors in the basic defending of that first goal but we do also get a little bit unfortunate. I'm sure for instance that Morgan's cross was intended for McGinn. I doubt he even saw Mallan coming from as far back as he did.

St Mirren in the first game at Paisley was the worst defending I've seen all season, though mostly that was just Andy Webster on his own.

[Arch Stanton]

55 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

The first goal starts with a handball from McGinn who controls it on halfway with his right arm. Looked like it might have been handball at the time, certainly everyone around us shouted for it, and it's pretty clear on the replay

So clear on the replay that it's actually Cammy Smith (11) not McGinn (22). Also McGinn wasn't in the box when Mallan scored, it was Morgan (who crossed), Smith, Loy and Mallan.

[Guest Flash]

7 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I didn't say they shouldn't have bothered to chase Mallan, they absolutely should have. Thomson in particular as the box to box workhorse in midfield had a responsibility to try to get there. I just said I don't think there's any chance he would have caught him given he started 10 yards behind him anyway. 

Just want to pick up on this point. If you stop the video just after Mallan wins the header and has taken a couple of steps, he is no more than 4 or 5 yards ahead of 2 Queens players. He then jogs a good part of the way towards the box. Watching it again, I actually think there was a good chance he could have been caught.

 

[Skyline Drifter]

37 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

So clear on the replay that it's actually Cammy Smith (11) not McGinn (22). Also McGinn wasn't in the box when Mallan scored, it was Morgan (who crossed), Smith, Loy and Mallan.

Yes, sorry, I had it in my head McGinn was wearing 11 but that was Smith, you're right. Otherwise everything I said is valid.

[Skyline Drifter]

31 minutes ago, Flash said:

Just want to pick up on this point. If you stop the video just after Mallan wins the header and has taken a couple of steps, he is no more than 4 or 5 yards ahead of 2 Queens players. He then jogs a good part of the way towards the box. Watching it again, I actually think there was a good chance he could have been caught.

Yes, looking at it again you're correct, they aren't all that far behind him, though Dobbie still wouldn't have kept up (he's not famed for his pace!) and Thomson is a good bit more central rather than over to that side. He should have been at least trying to get back in to support his defence though.

[19QOS19]

I expect [mention=12169]19QOS19[/mention] will be along shortly to apologies to Marshall [emoji14] Absolutely blameless for the first goal.

Nah, tbf to myself I said I'd wait for video evidence as I wasn't sure just that it came from his side. But he's certainly not to blame, he was tracking his man at the time; for once


TBH I've watched it and watched it again and if I had to assign an overall blame I'd actually blame Naysmith You could blame almost all the players who were back. That to me just strengthens my view that they are playing a system not suited to them. This is a video paused as soon as the Saints player wins the ball:-



Look at our shape. We're practically a 4-2-4. Neither Mercer or Marshall have any cover so the goal could have been identical but from the other side. Then this photo shows Saints attacking:-



Note the furthest forward player being our CB. Surely our whole side should be in that shot with the exception of Dykes? But no, we have Thomas, Dobbie and Thomson MIA. It's possibly ridiculous to criticise Naysmith but the players clearly can't play this system so these goals will continue to be conceded. Marshall and Mercer aren't great defensively so need support that they currently aren't getting. Rankin is being shoehorned into a role he's not best utilised and Dobbie is completely wasted out wide. To top it off he publicly blames the players. Mental.

The penalty looks soft there but it's down to the video angle. There was an obvious push and it was a stonewaller. Poor from Mercer. I suppose you could have a slight pop at Atkinson but it'd be extremely harsh. In that scenario he has a 50/50 choice to make, left or right. Sadly for us he went the wrong way.

[sergie's no1 fan]

Trying to be as neutral as possible when it comes to the penalty so here it goes.

The defender yanks at his arm a couple of times, even to the point where he knows he no longer has a chance at getting the ball, Morgan had him beat, even managed to cut in and was on his way to setting up a chance. You can normally tell a lot by the players reactions, the guilty defender didn't put up much of a protest neither did his team mates. It might be the angle of the camera that makes it look soft but its clear he yanks at the players arm at least twice, if that happens anywhere else on the park then its a foul so imo its a penalty.

Morgan has been our player of the season by far.

Edited to add i just noticed SD pretty much made the same points regarding the penalty.

[Monkey Tennis]

For the first one, too many defenders are obviously drawn towards the ball.  Mallan's touch when it eventually reaches him though is pretty heavy.  This gives Atkinson the chance to bear right down upon him before he can get his shot away.  However, he hesitates then turns away.  It's actually a bit cowardly.

The penalty looks softish, but Mercer's reaction probably tells us all we need to know.  If the decision represented an injustice, he certainly took it well. 

[kirkyblue2]

"Marshall and Mercer aren't great defensively."

They're defenders FFS.